{"product_id":"the-affect-lab-the-history-and-limits-of-measuring-emotion-9781517915452","title":"The Affect Lab: The History and Limits of","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eExamines how our understanding of emotion is shaped by the devices we use to measure it\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e   \u003cp\u003e Since the late nineteenth century, psychologists have used technological forms of media to measure and analyze emotion. In \u003ci\u003eThe Affect Lab\u003c\/i\u003e, Grant Bollmer examines the use of measurement tools such as electrical shocks, photography, video, and the electroencephalograph to argue that research on emotions has confused the physiology of emotion with the tools that define its inscription.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Bollmer shows that the psychological definitions of emotion have long been directly shaped by the physical qualities of the devices used in laboratory research. To investigate these devices, \u003ci\u003eThe Affect Lab\u003c\/i\u003e examines four technologies related to the history of psychology in North America: spiritualist toys at Harvard University, serial photography in early American psychological laboratories, experiments on “psychopaths” performed with an instrument called an Offner Dynograph, and the development of the “electropsychometer,” or “E-Meter,” by Volney Mathison and L. Ron Hubbard.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Challenging the large body of humanities research surrounding affect theory, \u003ci\u003eThe Affect Lab\u003c\/i\u003e identifies an understudied problem in formulations of affect: how affect is a construction inseparable from the techniques and devices used to identify and measure it. Ultimately, Bollmer offers a new critique of affect and affect theory, demonstrating how deferrals to psychology and neuroscience in contemporary theory and philosophy neglect the material of experimental, scientific research. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRetail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and\/or extended descriptions.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e \"Moving compellingly through a series of instruments drawn from the histories of experimental psychology, psychiatric photography, and spiritualism, Grant Bollmer provides an important materialist rebuke to the liberatory strain in affect theory, which frequently treats affect as ‘an eternal truth of the body rather than a momentary fragment.’\"—David Parisi, author of \u003ci\u003eArchaeologies of Touch: Interfacing with Haptics from Electricity to Computing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \"\u003ci\u003eThe Affect Lab\u003c\/i\u003e argues that beneath affect theory lies media. Far from being natural or biological—and, most fundamentally, far from being universal—affect is the product of the concrete technical operations that are necessary to access it in the first place. By challenging affect theory to examine its own technical basis, \u003ci\u003eThe Affect Lab\u003c\/i\u003e will reboot the field for our times and, in the process, fundamentally change our views of how affect operates and the roles it plays in lived experience.\"—Mark B. N. Hansen, author of \u003ci\u003eFeed-Forward: On the Future of Twenty-First-Century Media\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e Contents \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Introduction: Techniques of the Affect Lab \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e 1. William James’s Planchette \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e 2. Books of Faces \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e 3. The Prison Dynograph \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e 4. E-Meter Metaphysics \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Conclusion: The Epistemology and Aesthetics of Empathy \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Acknowledgments \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Notes \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Bibliography \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Index \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Minnesota Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49409727267159,"sku":"9781517915452","price":80.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781517915452.jpg?v=1730507814","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-affect-lab-the-history-and-limits-of-measuring-emotion-9781517915452","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}